C.Whelan | Secondary | Science
I only heard about retrieval practice about three years ago. I hadn’t heard about Hermann Ebbinghaus either. I completed my HdipEd in 1998. So what? Well, Ebbinghaus first introduced the ‘forgetting curve’ in the 1880’s. Why was he never mentioned when I was a student teacher? How many teachers in Ireland know about his research? I don’t know the answers to these questions but if you haven’t heard about him or retrieval practice, please keep reading.
Before I get into it, I have heard a few people call retrieval practice a fad or say, ‘we’ve always done it, it’s no big deal’. I think that it is important to understand the ‘why’ when we talk about retrieval practice. It took me a long time to get it right and I’m still learning. I have made mistakes while implementing it into my practice, but I feel now that I have a grip on it. For me, it is the most important strategy that I use in my laboratory.
What’s the story with the forgetting curve?
Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German phychologist who derived the forgetting curve in the 1880s. The curve plots the rate at which he was able to remember made up syllables after he learned them. His principle is broadly accepted by cognitive psychologists.
Hermann realised that as soon as he had learned something, he began forgetting it pretty much immediately. The rate of forgetting after learning something is very high. To put this into perspective, by the time your students have reached their next class, they will have forgotten a big chunk of what you have just taught them. Scary stuff! For me, this is a very important piece of research that every teacher and more importantly, student teacher should know. I didn’t know this. I knew students forgot, but not at this rate.
Please don’t panic! There is a something that can help. We can reduce the rate of forgetting by recalling the information several times. The more we retrieve something back into our working memory from our long-term memory, the rate of forgetting is slowed down.
What exactly is retrieval practice?
“Retrieval practice involves bringing previously learned information to mind or, more specifically, bringing information from the long-term memory into the working memory”.
(Weinstein, Madan and Sumeracki, 2018).
Doug Lemov (Teach like a champion 3.0) describes it as “the process of causing students to recall information they’ve learned after a strategic delay”. Doug continues with, “Retrieval practice is a practical solution to the problem of forgetting.”
Our working memory is where we do all of our processing/thinking, and the long-term memory is where we store information. Working memory is very limited, this means that we can only think about a very small number of things at the one time. Retrieval is when we remember information from our long-term memory and bring it back into our working memory. So, what does this look like in the classroom. In my classroom, it takes the form of a ‘do now’ quiz at the start of class, cold calling, mini whiteboards, carousel learning and a weekly review.
What does my ‘do now’ look like?
Before I get into that, here is what I did pre 2017 in class:
Students would arrive, and I’d settle them down to pay attention to a PowerPoint that I had made in advance or used one that someone else made. I would give them a chance to take down each slide using the Cornell notes system. Students would then attempt some questions in their copies as I walked around and made sure that they were writing. By the way, even though I still feel embarrassed about this, I didn’t know any better and I’m sure some students learned material. I had never heard of retrieval practice. I didn’t ask enough questions and if I ever did, I only asked the students who I knew were comfortable answering.
Post 2017:
Students arrive to class and are greeted by 6-8 core questions that I select based on what we have covered in the last few classes or even further back. Students sit quietly and answer the questions in the back of their class copy. When they are finished, I cold call the questions. I pick out students to answer each question. This is where retrieval practice really differs from rote learning. When I ask a student for their answer, if they get it right, I ask another question linked to that answer and move to another student. I could ask up to five extra questions from the one do now question. This technique helps connect ideas from different parts of the course thus help add to the students’ schemas.
I mentioned above that in my pre 2017 classes, some students would retain information. What I’m finding with retrieval practice is that all students have a chance. I have seen some students who in the past have struggled with material really improve by using retrieval practice. I’m not getting H1’s all round, but I am seeing progress from all students. And here’s another thing, students really like this strategy. They get it. The biggest obstacle for me is getting students to use retrieval practice at home. I use Carousel Learning (online platform) to help encourage students use this strategy outside of class time. They get two sets of retrieval practice questions a week for homework, and they also have a study pack for each topic (core questions for each topic). The study pack allows students to use retrieval practice during independent practice.
Retrieval practice in your classroom will probably look very different to mine, and that’s ok. It is really worth discussing it at your next department meeting. Agreeing on and creating a bank of core questions with your department is a very good place to start. Knowing what to retrieve is very important. My next step is to bring in past paper questions to my do now at the start of class, only once I'm happy that the students have a good handle of the core knowledge.
We've all heard the term "flatten the curve". Retrieval practice will definitely help flatten the forgetting curve and help students remember more in the long run.